Ideally, now, the DPLA will drop the “Public” from its name, so people won’t see it as a replacement for our public library system. The optimal scenario is that DPLA not be the actual national digital library system or encourage another nongovernment group toward similar aspirations; instead I envision a “DLA” supporting the public system through links and content exchanges, financial assistance and in other ways. The national digital system itself should use traditional public governance and exist within the Library of Congress, as long as the Library does not interfere with a truly democratic and distributed approach involving many librarians in many locations. Well run, a public system could be highly responsive to community needs.

While I worry about the DPLA name’s use of the word “Public,” it’s mainly because I’d hope that the organization would not unwittingly preempt traditional public libraries and the system I’ve just described. I fervently believe that “DLA” content should be directly reachable by ordinary citizens—one way to help encourage a diversity of accessible content and reduce the risk of censorship of the actual public library system, since there would be no central chokehold for the library world. Also, the DPLA/DLA efforts should strive to make books and other items available internationally when complications such as copyright do not arise.

Here are a few of the ideas I have in mind for the DPLA in particular: more of a focus on content of scholarly interest than the library system at large would have, even though the public side could pick up the DPLA’s work and add its own twists; innovative experiments, which might be fiscally or politically risky for the public library system; specialized technical help for the public system; and, of course, library advocacy. I don’t see the DPLA as simply serving the elite. But I do believe that group would be truer to its own values and priorities if it did not position itself or an allied group as a full-service public national digital library system. Meanwhile the actual public system could focus on access, content and services for the masses—everything from family literacy efforts to the development and curation of multimedia content for workers seeking to upgrade their skills. It could work closely with the federal government’s broadband efforts and also the cost-justification ones I’ve described on the Atlantic’s Web site.

Detail #1: Someone—I don’t know who—accidentally dropped the “not” when I said in the Chronicle essay that culture in a library shouldn’t be viewed as the equivalent of a condiment in a school lunch. I was alluding to the ketchup-as-a-vegetable debate from many years ago. The Chronicle almost immediately corrected the online version, thereby reminding me of the virtues of online media. By the way, the Chronicle people were a pleasure to work with. At the same time I was hardly surprised to see the essay draw a crowd of trolls from universities with well-stocked paper libraries. Pretty par for the course. I’m grateful to people on campus who are more capable of understanding the needs of the nation at large; of, for example, the residents of small towns with underfunded libraries and no bookstores, unless you include the bookracks at the local Walmarts.

Detail #2: The Palfrey book is relevant since I myself envision K-12 needs as a major justification for the creation of a national digital library system. Here’s one passage—about “Digital Natives”—that resonated with me: “Research once meant a trip to the library to paw through a musty card catalog and puzzle over the Dewey Decimal System to find a book to pull off the shelves. Now research means a Google search—and, for most, a visit to Wikipedia before diving deeper into a topic.” Exactly! I’ve been writing out similar thoughts for years. We need to weave libraries into the fabric of the Net, through links and otherwise, and reach the young people who mistakenly see Google as a substitute for the authoritative information that libraries offer. An anti-Web approach? Actually just the opposite. Via good links from the library site, people will be enriching the Web, including social networking sites. Also, we can also teach young people how to evaluate material on the Web and in the library; and an extensive collection of easily searchable and well-linked library content, along with extensive interactivity and well-developed communities on the library site itself, with participation from topic experts, would make this easier. I love Wikipedia but it is a library not.

David Rothman { Thanks, Todd. A few points: 1. Portals rich in metadata---not just full-fledged archives---can be useful. Of course, I wish the DPLA interface were better so... } – May 06, 1:04 PM

Todd { I'm confused by your call to support the DPLA with an endowment. If the DPLA is to become a real public library it needs to... } – May 06, 12:33 PM

David Rothman { Thanks for caring about this important issue, Robert. iBooks' TTS isn't as slick as it could be, nor is the TTS as used on the... } – Jan 03, 9:20 PM

Robert Nagle { The fact that the low powered earlier Kindle 3 model could implement a reasonably functional version of text-to-speech suggests that the technological challenges of doing... } – Jan 03, 9:09 PM

David Rothman { Hi, Troy--I very much appreciated your note. No, not much is available in Alexandria in terms of general bookstores, perhaps partly because rents around here... } – Oct 21, 2:15 PM

Troy Johnson { I wish I read this aticle before compiling my list of best cities for readers of African American literature. Part of my motivation for publishing... } – Oct 21, 1:21 PM

David Rothman { Thanks for your comments, Jen. Actually we agree in many if not most ways. I certainly want librarians to be able to go outside to... } – Oct 15, 12:39 PM

Jen { Sadly, I don't share your optimism about the ability of libraries to manage the security of their own applications. Libraries have good intentions when it... } – Oct 15, 12:12 PM

Diane Romm { We did that once before. It was called a subscription library, and it's what existed before the rise of free public libraries. What did it... } – Jul 22, 9:51 AM

David Rothman { Thanks for your opinions, L.O. A lot of sensible people share our feelings about the greater value that a different approach could add. Here are a... } – Jul 05, 12:25 PM

Library Observer { I admittedly have no knowledge of the internal dollars and cents workings of Overdrive -- but it does touch on topics that I have always... } – Jul 05, 11:45 AM

David Rothman { Hi, Mike. I really appreciate your suggestions, but Testbag, almost surely one of the offenders, is not even on the app menu within Settings. And... } – May 16, 8:14 PM

Mike { Just go in settings, application and disable (if you cannot uninstall) the apps (like ubiinfo) that bugs you with ads. Avast antivirus for Android will tell you... } – May 16, 1:54 PM